Hot Springs Man Sentenced For Bank Fraud

LITTLE ROCK — A Hot Springs man was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison Friday for one count of bank fraud a during a hearing in U.S. district court in Fayetteville.

LITTLE ROCK — A Hot Springs man was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison Friday for one count of bank fraud a during a hearing in U.S. district court in Fayetteville.

The sentence will run consecutive to a 2012 sentence of 18 months in connection with a tax evasion of assessment charge.

Along with the 41 months in prison, U.S. District Judge Jimm Hendren ordered Stephen R. Walker, the former COO for Phoenix Renewable Energy of Hot Springs, to serve five years of supervised probation upon his release and fined him $10,000.

According to documents filed in the case, Walker, who with others had created Broken Arrow Plaza Associates to build a shopping plaza in Broken Arrow, Okla., entered a loan agreement with Arvest Bank in Rogers to fund the construction of the shopping plaza.

Terms of the loan specified that the loan funds were to be used solely to fund the construction of Oklahoma project. In 2005, Walker withdrew $423,305.50 from Arvest Bank for work he claimed was completed on the Broken Arrow project.

No work was completed on the project, but Walker, according to court documents, fabricated two construction invoices and prepared two checks in the amount of the invoices to misrepresent to bank officials that the construction work had been completed.

Walker pleaded guilty to one count of bank fraud last November.

In July 2012, Walker was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for willful tax evasion after setting up the payment of his salary from Renaissance Development during 2005 in a manner to evade paying taxes on his income, prosecutors said.